John Adams started building on magic, but Darvish shifted the nature of the spell, turning it in a way that John stepped back toward the center of the circle, his jaw clenching, and the corners of his eyes narrowing.
“I can hold this indefinitely,” Darvish said.
“Can you? I’ve seen people on this side of the Veil hold a spell for years. Do you think you can manage the same?”
“I have a hard time thinking you have the ability to tolerate being on this side of the Veil for that long,” Darvish said.
John Adams merely smiled. “You might be surprised.”
“What did you hear about Kate?”
“I was intending for her to come to you, Dr. Stone.”
“And yet, you must have known there was a way of finding her on this side of the Veil.”
“Perhaps,” he said.
“What was it?”
“There have been rumors of her pursuit on this side of the Veil.”
“What sort of pursuit?”
“That of royalty,” John Adams said.
“We avoided the fae,” Darvish said. When I looked at him, he shrugged. “We stayed away from the two factions of the fae. We didn’t know a lot about them, and there was enough trouble brewing already.”
“Is that right?” John Adams said.
Darvish shot him a glare. “If you’ve been monitoring this side of the Veil, then you would have known about the fae war. It was brief, at least for a war on this side of the Veil, but it is over.”
John Adams grinned. “The fae don’t do anything briefly.”
“They do when it’s in their best interest to stop fighting. And they do when someone of power comes to them and forces them to stop.”
John Adams watched him, cocking his head to the side, as if trying to decide whether or not Darvish was telling the truth. For that matter, I wanted to know whether Darvish was telling the truth. What did Darvish know about the goings-on on this side of the Veil? He had been only gone for two months on this side, so it couldn’t have been that long, could it?
Then again, on our side, it had been two years, which was long enough for many things to have taken place.
“You seem as if you’re telling the truth,” John Adams said.
“I’m not telling you anything to impress you,” Darvish said.
“No, as you must know it wouldn’t work.”
Darvish grunted, shaking his head. “I could care less what you think, but what I know is that the fae are unsettled. There is a tenuous peace, and yet, we need to ensure peace remains. It’s why Kate refused to stay within these realms.”
“Then where did she go?”
“There are seven different realms on this side of the Veil,” Darvish said.
“And how many of them have royalty?” John Adams asked.
Darvish shook his head. “No. She wouldn’t have gone there.”
“Where?” I asked, glancing from Darvish to John Adams.
“It doesn’t matter,” Darvish said. “Kate wouldn’t have gone there.”
When he didn’t answer me, I turned my attention to John Adams. “What is he not telling me? If she’s not with the fae, what other royalty is there on this side of the Veil?”
“There are many types of royalty, but there is only one he would be distraught by her pursuing,” John Adams replied.
“Which is that?”
“The demons.”
14
I pulled Darvish off to the side, keeping John Adams in the corner of my eye. He was held within the barrier, and so far, he’d made no effort to try to escape, though I didn’t even know if he could. It was possible, the way Darvish was holding him, there would be no escape. The nature of magic on this side of the Veil might make it difficult for him to do anything other than stand there in the center of the circle, waiting for Darvish to release him. For his part, John Adams appeared far more comfortable in the situation than he should have. It reminded me of seeing him when we’d first entered the prison, the way he stood there, almost nonchalant, as if he was not a prisoner at all.
“Why would Kate go to the demons?”
“She wouldn’t have,” Darvish said.
“So why would John Adams think she might?”
Darvish glanced past me, staring at the center of the clearing, his gaze boring into John Adams. “The demon realm is a place of nightmares, Dr. Stone. I don’t know if you’ve ever encountered a demon on the our side of the Veil—”
“I haven’t.”
“Well, on our side, they are difficult to deal with. Demons crawl across the weaknesses within the Veil. There was a time when we thought they were summoned, drawn across the Veil, but we no longer know if that’s the case or not. Most of the time, we think demons who cross the Veil do so out of opportunity more than anything else. They appear like tall men on our side, but on this side they are enormous, creatures of stone or other horrible things which make them incredibly difficult to bring down.”
“Have you faced a demon on this side of the Veil?”
“Once, and I barely survived it.”
“That was something Kate saved you from.”
He nodded. “Barden faced a demon, once. When he came with Kate to this side of the Veil, trying to help her figure out what was taking place. He had experience with it, and because of that, he warned me. There is only so much we can do against them, and the nature of their power is such that it overwhelms those like us. The demons are powerful here. It’s why they are set apart from the rest of the realms—isolated. That is done out of necessity, because the demons can cause great danger on this side.
It surprised me there would be creatures on this side of the Veil others would be scared of, but then, wasn’t that what I had expected? It was in line with what I’d been hearing. There was power on this side of the Veil, power which could actually create a threat to Kate, regardless of how much power she had. If that was where she had gone, it meant others had gone after her, and I didn’t doubt Barden and Veran and Cynthia would have sought a way of finding her.
I didn’t like the idea of going into some demon realm, tracking our way across, risking ourselves against a creature or creatures which were beyond my comprehension, but what choice did I have? We had come trying to save Kate. And it made sense. If she had been captured, wouldn’t it be within a demon realm?
“What can you tell me about the different realms on this side of the Veil?”
“There are the two different factions of fae.”
“There are separate realms for each?”
“As far as we know, there are, though Kate wondered if they were the same realm.”
“Then there would be six realms.”
“I don’t think so,” Darvish said. He looked around, and he frowned. Power built from him, almost as if he were using a spell, trying to make sure we were still safe. I had to wonder why he was doing it, and I worried there might be someone coming who had power of their own. If they did, what might we encounter? Darvish turned his attention back to me, his spell retreating. He seemed at peace, at least at peace enough, though that didn’t change the fact I was still uncomfortable with what we’d experienced.
“You were saying?”
“What I was saying is that all the stories about the realms tell us there are seven. So if the fae represent a single realm, it means that there are still other realms we have to account for.”
“How many were you able to visit?”
“We visited the fae realms,” he said, nodding to the space around us. “And that was about it. I got lost when we were making our way through the fae realms, mostly because it was so dangerous for me. When I was with Kate, it was safer, but there was always the possibility I might be encountered by one of the fae.”
“What would happen if you were?”
“The fae are incredibly powerful, and they don’t tolerate people not of their realms coming into them. They view it as a violation, almost an act of war, and when that happens, they do e
verything in their power—which is considerable—to kick them out.”
“What about with Kate?”
“Kate is different. In her case, they allowed her to remain, but part of that is because they didn’t know how to deal with her. Her power is such they weren’t sure what to do about her.”
That didn’t surprise me after everything I’d begun to hear about Kate. Everything I had heard suggested she was incredibly powerful, and it would take fae of considerable power to resist her. Then again, if they viewed interlopers as an act of war, why wouldn’t they view Kate as an act of war?
Unless they had. Could it be that she was trapped within the fae?
“Before I found you—or you found me, you said you went to someone for help.”
Darvish glanced over to me. “I did.”
“Who did you go to for help?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I think it does. If they have familiarity and ability here, then it matters a lot.”
“I don’t know what ability they have on this side. They are familiar with it, and they can navigate it far easier than I can, but they aren’t any more welcome than anyone else is. In some ways, they might be even less welcome.”
“Why?”
“Because they represent something the fae detest.”
“What is that?”
“Uncertainty.”
“That’s all you’re going to tell me?”
“I think that’s all I need to tell you.”
I turned my attention back to John Adams. “If he knows something, then we need to use it.”
“I don’t know if it’s safe to use him,” Darvish said.
“What choice do we have? What if our goal is to find them?”
Darvish took a deep breath. “My goal was to find out if there was any way we might be able to connect to them on this side of the Veil. Now we’re here, and now there is no different sense of them, I don’t think we should stay.”
“You would turn around already?”
“We don’t have any choice but to do so,” Darvish said.
“I’m not going to leave them behind.”
“I—”
Darvish cut off, and he jerked his head around. His eyes went wide, and when they did, the chill along my arms increased, and I realized what had drawn his attention. There was something using magic nearby, and it was considerable. Whatever it was drew on enough power that I could detect it, but furthermore, it was enough power Darvish was aware of it.
“We need to get going,” Darvish said.
“Where?”
“Back across the Veil,” he said.
“But we haven’t done anything yet.”
“I know. I thought we might have more time than we do. But now, it seems we have been detected, it doesn’t make sense for us to stay on this side. If we do, we run the risk of something worse happening to us.”
“What sort of something worse?”
“We should be in one of the fae realms,” Darvish said.
“As far as I know, the mage council has an agreement with the fae.”
“They do, but it’s tenuous. And it depends upon who we come across. It doesn’t mean the fae will allow anyone to roam freely across their realm.”
Darvish headed back toward the circle, and he held onto a sense of magic. As he did, I realized there was something else taking place. There was power pushing out from the circle, and it came from John Adams.
“What’s he doing?” I asked.
“He’s preventing us from getting to the circle,” Darvish said. There was more than just annoyance in his voice. There was anger, and he started toward the circle, holding onto power, trying to pull enough through.
“What are you trying to do?”
“I’m trying to crush him.” Darvish said.
“What will that accomplish?”
“It will get him to release his hold on the neutral ground.” Darvish clenched his jaw, focusing on something, though I couldn’t tell what it was. As he did, there was a sense of energy tingling along my skin, and I couldn’t tell whether it came from what Darvish and John Adams were doing or whether it came from whoever was approaching, but either way, we were in increasing danger.
I turned around, looking behind me, searching to see who was approaching. If I could, then maybe I could interfere, at least slow it. Then again, we were on the other side of the Veil, and my control over power was going to be far less than the people who lived on this side. Anything I might be able to do would be considerably less.
Searching through my pouch, I grabbed for a couple of the spell coins. I wanted to have some protection, just in case, and I gripped them. One of them was a barrier, and I held onto it, prepared for the possibility I might need to use that first, but the other was an attacking spell—my way of being prepared to use it against anyone who might be approaching.
I might need even more. Reaching into the pouch, I grabbed for a couple different options. I slipped them between my fingers, keeping a series of protective barriers in one hand, and the offensive spells in the other. In doing so, I wasn’t sure if it was going to be enough, but the sense of magic continued to build, and I could feel the power tingling along my skin. As it intensified, I couldn’t help but feel the fluttering in my chest increase as well.
I wanted to be somewhere other than here. Whoever was approaching had considerable power—more than I had ever felt before. That much was clear to me. As I detected the level power, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to defend myself if it attacked. I pushed that thought away. There was something familiar about the thought, resembling the way the vampires made me feel. There was something almost persuasive about it. Could it be a vampire? Jean-Pierre had made it sound as if the vampires didn’t originate on this side of the Veil, but what if there were something similar?
“Do you feel that?” I asked Darvish.
“All I can feel is the effect of what John Adams is doing to prevent me from reaching the circle.”
For his part, John Adams smiled, and there was almost a dark amusement in his eyes. He knew we weren’t able to reach the circle, just as he knew we needed to. It was also likely he could feel the effect of whatever was coming.
“It reminds me of vampires,” I said.
Darvish jerked his head around. “Vampires?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“We need to move.”
“What?
“We can’t stay here.”
“But—”
Darvish grabbed me, and he began pulling.
“…We can’t leave John Adams like this.”
“We can if he’s not going to release his hold.
“Maybe he would if he realized what was coming.”
Darvish clenched his jaw. “Do you know of the Draconis?” he asked John Adams.
The other man stared, annoyance flashing on his face.
“I’m sure you believe they are nothing but a myth, but I can assure you they are real. I have experienced them myself, and”—he glanced over to me—”they are another reason I nearly died.”
“What are they?”
“They are creatures that have been twisted on this side of the Veil. They are similar to vampires, though as far as we know, they aren’t quite the same.”
“Then why should we fear them?”
“Because they are descended from the fae. They have much of their power, though like them, it’s twisted.”
“Yet, the sense I feel is like what I feel from vampires.”
“As you would. You feel that because it comes from the Draconis. It’s quite a distinct sensation, and those who are sensitive to it are aware of it.”
I glanced over to John Adams. “If you want to survive this, then you need to come with us.”
“What makes you think I won’t survive this?”
“Because as soon as he lowers his circle, I’m going to hit you with the paralytic. And I can assure you it will hold you long enough for this Draconis to ar
rive.” I didn’t feel as confident as I sounded, but when it came to John Adams, I didn’t think that mattered. What I needed was to deter him and convince him he needed to work with us. I wasn’t sure he would agree, though if what Darvish said about these creatures coming in our direction was true, they would be terribly frightening and hopefully would be enough to convince John Adams to stop fighting us.
The cold continued to build, washing along my skin. “They’re getting closer,” I said.
“Then we should go. Let’s leave him here.”
“I don’t like the idea of leaving him behind.”
“If he wants to stay and die, then it’s his choice. We don’t need to stay and die with him.”
John Adams grinned. “What makes you think I—” Then his eyes widened, and he looked past me.
I spun, looking up in the direction John Adams was staring. My gaze was drawn to the upper branches where something swooped. It was a darkened figure, almost manlike, but it flew like a bird. A chill washed over me, cold and biting, and I trembled under the suddenness of it.
This was a Draconis? There was power in that creature, and I didn’t need to be magically connected to know. As it circled, focusing on the clearing, I could feel the power building. I dropped a spell coin, triggering it and erecting a barrier. As soon as I did, I realized Darvish had done the same. What did I have on me that might be effective?
Darvish turned his focus on the Draconis, and a spell streaked away from him, shooting toward the Draconis. It struck the trees, and branches fluttered, leaves dropping to the ground, but the Draconis still flew. Another spell, and then another, each of them streaking away from Darvish, power after power coming from him.
None of them struck. It was almost as if the Draconis had a weird resistance to magic. Almost too late, I realized there was something else taking place. It came from behind me.
John Adams. I spun, and I flung one of my coins. It exploded as John Adams stepped free of the circle. He tried to focus on the ground, shifting the nature of his magic, but he was too slow. The coin hit, and then the ground erupted, sending him flying.
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